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Sarah and Carl Clulow of Bernard's Farm are thrilled to share that they have successfully achieved their tenant farm opportunity thanks to Peak District National Park Authority.
Here, Sarah tells her story:
We are true new entrants to farming - an IT man & a mum of 5 and an ex social worker assistant, no farmers in the family, no family farm, just a massive dream and a lot of perseverance and hard work to manage our own beef & sheep farm, ideally close to where we and the children are settled . We have started a farm from scratch literally purchased everything from barrows & buckets to tractors and trailers as time went on, and now run a suckler herd of Hereford & Angus cattle and Native sheep .
We have always farmed with 2 priorities; nature friendly farming and high standards of animal welfare, and we've built up a loyal and fabulous customer base locally who buy our lamb , hogget pork and eggs . We are looking forward to offering our first ever beef boxes soon, and particularly in combining my previous skills in my background in childrenโs social ย care with the farm and opening up the farm to school visits next spring .
We are just in the process of moving ourselves , our 5 children , stock and kit, and itโs really exciting to have what we havenโt had ever which is a base and some stability with a farm business tenancy . We have only ever had 12 month grazing licences , and itโs been challenging to manage building up stock on purely rented land and sheds, and have had up to 9 landlords at any one time! Not to mention the driving round checking stock , repairing fences, etc.
We had been tendering for farms for a couple of years and from the first application we made, kept coming second place . Thereโs a community of first generation farmers on Facebook and we all try to support each other and share FBT / grazing ground opportunities as they come up .
The children are really excited , they are very proud - theyโve experienced all the highs and lows of farm life and we couldnโt believe how quickly they took to farm life, having lived in a town house in Biddulph previously! The hardest challenge was definitely introducing the concept of raising our own animals for the table .
We are incredibly grateful to the Peak Park for their life changing opportunity and we cannot wait to work towards shared goals for their upland land and traditional hay meadows using our native cattle . We would like to share our many experiences of tendering for tenant farms with other new entrants, and our advice would definitely be to think long term, think big, work your backside off and know your business aims inside out & then stick to them . But most of all, to enjoy the journey along the way as this farm life , itโs like no other . Itโs why we put absolutely everything we had into making it happen .
You can follow Sarah and Carl on their new adventures on their social pages, Bernard's Farm
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